Ministers, Civil Servants and Departments: The Core Executive and Policy-Making

Abstract

It is within departments that most policy-making occurs. As Tony Crosland acknowledged: The individual department must surely be the mainspring of executive activity. They should put up policies, and cabinet should accept or reject them according to whether they are consistent with general government objectives’ (quoted in Kogan 1971: 163). Departments control the policy-making resources of time, administrative capability, expertise and knowledge. The role of the cabinet is largely to resolve disputes. Even hyperactive prime ministers like Margaret Thatcher, who desire involvement in a range of policy areas, are limited by time to a few high-profile areas. Therefore, to reach a comprehensive understanding of the operation of the core executive it is necessary to examine the relationships between ministers and civil servants, the operations of departments and the relationships between departments. The analysis of ministerial—civil service relations has been framed in terms of who has power. In this chapter I will demonstrate that such a criterion oversimplifies these relationships, which are based on dependency. For either to achieve their goals they need each other. The aim of this chapter is to look at the policy process at the departmental level. It will begin by examining the traditional approaches to minister—civil service relations.